1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to semiconductor devices, and more specifically to e-fuse arrays as they relate to semiconductor packages within semiconductor devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Semiconductor devices may include fuses that store information necessary for various internal control operations, for example, setup information, repair information or the like. General fuses can be programmed in a wafer level because a logic level of each data is determined according to an electrical open/short state of each fuse. However, once the semiconductor devices are encapsulated to form semiconductor packages, it may be impossible to program the general fuses in the semiconductor packages. E-fuses are widely used to solve the aforementioned disadvantage. Each of the e-fuses may be realized using a transistor, for example, a nonvolatile memory (NVM) cell transistor having a floating gate or a charge trapping layer. In such a case, a data may be stored in the e-fuse by programming or erasing the transistor to change a threshold voltage of the transistor. That is, the e-fuse may be electrically open or short according to a resistance value between a source and a drain of the transistor employed as the e-fuse.
In order to correctly recognize the data stored in the e-fuses, a size of the transistors employed as the e-fuses has to be increased or amplifiers have to be used without increasing the size of the transistors employed as the e-fuses. However, in any case, there may be limitations in increasing the integration density of the semiconductor devices including the e-fuses.
Recently, e-fuse arrays have been proposed to solve the limitations of the integration density of the e-fuses and to store the information necessary for various internal control operations of the semiconductor devices. In the event that the e-fuse arrays are employed in the semiconductor devices, the e-fuse arrays may share the amplifiers with each other. Accordingly, the integration density of the semiconductor devices may be improved.